Lithium
by GhostlyMayhem
Summary: 'He sat in the silence. Silence, making it known to him, reminding him that the enemy soldiers were gone. And so were his wife and child.' Marjory and Yvonne really did exist once. Salad Fingers didn't remember that... until now. One-shot. Please review!


**Lithium**

_Bombs dropped, people fled. The first stage of his eventual, long-term mental trauma came when, -as he and his wife and child ran for their own lives-, he noticed that some of the women and children who fled from their burning homes as explosions erupted all around them, had caught on fire, and the screams that burst from their throats were from agony as the flames tore through their clothes and eventually through their skin, tearing down to the bone. There were no other men in town but him, for when his country's military came to town months earlier looking for men to draft forcefully into the army for the Great War, his family kept him hidden. His wife didn't want him to end up like his brother, Kenneth; drafted, trained and killed in action. She would be damned if she let him go to a similar fate._

_He gripped his child closer to him while his wife's grip on his arm tightened. He shielded his daughter's eyes from the burning people around them, from the chaos._

_The enemy had found their small town. And there was no one to help them now._

_As they ran further from the chaos, with planes flying overhead dropping more bombs around them, he glanced over at his wife. Her long flowing dark auburn hair seemed illuminated by the flames that engulfed every building in town. Her hair bounced behind her, trailing away like a satin red ribbon as they continued to run away from the source of current and forthcoming destruction. The sounds of the screams and roaring flames and explosions seemed to dissipate as they grew further away, into the nearby hills that laid around their small town. The only sound becoming audible to the husband and wife now, were the sounds of their crying child._

_It took them four hours of fleeing into the night before they could find the closest shelter away from the sure ruins of what was once their town, once their home. An old house, not quite big by the looks of it on the outside. Once they made it inside, and after he did a quick search throughout the small, seemingly abandoned shelter, the worry that it was already occupied ceased completely. For that moment, and the moments during the few days following afterwards, it was safe._

* * *

_Safe..._

_It was safe._

He did a quick look around the place he's called home now for years. "Safe... It's quite safe now, Yvonne..." There was no one with him now, he spoke only to himself in the silence, though he didn't know that. He never did. "Daddy is sure of it."

* * *

_"...they'll never find us here."_

_Yvonne had her mother's eyes. Blue, like the oceans that covered half the world. Soft, bright blue, reflecting the colors of a clear sky on a warm summer day. "Promise?"_

_He smiled reassuringly, patting her head. "I promise. Now go to sleep. It'll surely be a long day tomorrow."_

_She complied, leaning against her mother who sat on the other side next to her. Those big, curious blue eyes closed for the time being._

_The other pair of blue eyes however stared out into the distance; vacant, a void in them. His wife clearly understood what had happened, and the dangers that still lurked._

_He watched her for a few moments, though he didn't speak. He just watched her. That was all he could do. All he felt was best to do._

_"...People were burning," she said slowly, voice barely above a whisper. "Children. They just... Caught on fire. Those flames ate them, like monsters in the night..."_

* * *

He smiled, staring at the ceiling. "...That was a good metaphor, Marjory. It's a shame our daughter didn't get a chance to hear it. She slept so soundly, unaware of those monsters." He grinned now. "Those monsters ate everything... And made such an awful noise, too..."

* * *

_"...How could we have not known that the enemy was near?" He noticed a single tear trial down Marjory's pale cheek. "How did we not hear their planes coming?"_

_"We didn't know they'd come here."_

_"Yes, but... We should have at least prepared for it." She went silent after that, left to slowly rot in her mind from the images of those burning women and children, drowning in the flames, explosions and screams. The only mental torment she'd ever really face... Though they both shared those horrible images together, that was as far as her fragile mental state would be shattered. His however, was only beginning to..._

* * *

"It took ages to fix that door..." He shook his head, seeming disappointed. "How rude it was indeed, for them to break down the door... When they could have knocked..."

* * *

_Those few days there, surviving peacefully didn't last. It was barely morning on their third day when the front door was slammed off it's hinges._

_The family of three shot up instantly. In the other room they could hear hollering and thundering footsteps._

* * *

"Oh Marjory, there's no need to worry." He held up one hand. What was once five fingers had now mutated to three. And they were quite long. And green. Radiation had lingered in the area over the years, changing him completely. Inside and out.

On one finger was a puppet. Red hair. Black (but once blue) eyes. Marjory was still with him, though he didn't specifically remember her role in his life years ago. Not completely, anyway. "They'll go away... They always do during the Great War..."

Suddenly he frowned.

"Yvonne, you shouldn't make such racket at a time like this."

* * *

_"Yvonne, please..." Startled by the abrupt sounds, the nine-year-old awoke terrified, sobbing loudly. And her father tried to calm her down in hopes that they wouldn't alert what was surely enemy soldiers that had intruded into their hide-out shelter. He held her and his wife close, the three of them huddled together. It would only be a matter of time before those soldiers found the room they were hiding in._

_He glanced over at Marjory, who, with wide eyes, nodded, almost as though she knew what he was implying. Somewhere to hide their child, to at least keep their daughter safe._

* * *

"The cupboard," he said slowly. "Yvonne, get in the cupboard. Be a good girl and listen to Daddy. You don't want the big bad monsters to find you out in the open."

* * *

_"But Daddy-"_

_"Yvonne, listen to your father," Marjory cut in, sternly._

_The little girl hesitated, but after a moment, she complied with her parent's wishes, crawling into the safety cupboard._

_"They won't find you in here," he said._

_She stared back at him, ocean blue eyes wide in the darkness of that cupboard, staring back at him. "Promise?"_

_The footsteps grew closer._

_He nodded quickly. "I promise." He hastily shut the cupboard door, leaving his only child in the darkness. But it would keep her safe, and he had to remember that._

* * *

Which he didn't now. Kind of…

"The doors locked," he stated loudly. "You'll have some trouble getting in."

* * *

_He reached for Marjory's hand, clinging tightly to it as the footsteps made their way over._

_With wide, worried eyes, she glanced at him, just as the footsteps stopped... Right before the door to the room they resided in. Her heart raced in her chest in fear as they pounded against the door, trying to break in. The door was locked, but it was an old door, and wouldn't hold long._

_She gave his hand a quick squeeze, her breathing caught in her throat momentarily._

_The door finally flew off it's hinges. Soldiers flooded into the room, armed with guns. He noticed they were the enemy soldiers, though he had known that all along._

_He and Marjory stood up quickly, the guns aimed right at the two. Right where their hearts were. The fatal shot. That, or the head, he knew that for sure, but if he was going to be shot, he hoped it would be in the head for it would be quick._

_Neither of them spoke, but the enemy soldiers did, shouting at the two in a foreign language that neither husband nor wife could understand. Some soldiers were yelling, some waving their guns, glancing at each other._

_It all happened so fast after that initial few moments of confusion regarding to what might happen next._

_Two soldiers came up to Marjory, and before he could register what they were doing, he was startled by her scream. The soldiers had grabbed her, despite her protests, despite her struggling._

_And it angered him, despite how helpless he was to stop it. "NO!" But he tried to stop it anyway, racing toward the soldiers who were dragging his beloved wife away, to whatever horrible fate they had in store for her. He reached for her, only to be held back, just as the two soldiers were about to haul her out of the room for good. Her screams continued even once she was out of the room, until it ended and he couldn't hear her anymore._

_He struggled against the soldiers who held him back, only to be thrown back against the wall. They didn't drag him away, nor made any attempt to take him. They only wanted his wife. They only wanted a female._

_And he knew why._

_He made an attempt to get up, only to be hit across the head by a gun. It startled him once he was thrown back and landed as a heap on the ground. His vision blurred, his head throbbed, and the soldiers surrounded him still, aiming their guns at him, just in case._

* * *

"Yvonne, don't make such a fuss..."

* * *

_A few soldiers started yelling again, and at first he didn't know why, not even in his dazed state, but even as he laid there, watching the enemy soldiers around him, he finally heard it. What they were yelling about:_

_Yvonne._

_Even seemingly kept safe in that cupboard, her sobbing was quite loud, producing a muffled noise that could be heard by the soldiers. And they weren't about to leave with just his wife._

_He noticed a soldier making their way over toward the cupboard, and he attempted to get up once more, only to feel the gun brought down against his head once more, bringing him back down to the floor. He was helpless as he watched the soldier open the cupboard, reaching in and pulling out Yvonne._

_His eyes widened, fearfully. "No..."_

_Yvonne erupted screaming when pulled out of the cupboard, thrashing in the arms of the soldier who found her. She spotted her father immobilized on the ground in the corner, and reached for him. She was calling for him as she was carried out of that room. Pleading._

_And he could do nothing but watch._

_"Yvonne..." the name slipped past his lips before he completely blacked out._

* * *

"...Such a quiet morning it was after that," he told the puppet on his finger. "You should have seen it, Marjory."

Of course, he couldn't be sure if she ever did.

* * *

_The next morning had in fact been a quiet one. He abruptly sat up, remembering the events the day before._

_Marjory and Yvonne. They were both gone._

_He sat in the silence. Silence, making it known to him, reminding him that the enemy soldiers were gone._

_And so were his wife and child._

* * *

The first few years, once the radiation effects began making a change to his body, slowly but surely, he would remember. The burning people, the abductions of his wife and child. There was no one else but him there, all alone now... Possible a widow now, possible childless. It all depended on if Marjory and Yvonne were still alive. But he didn't like to think about the 'what-if's. In fact, to make the pain and guilt inside go away, he tried to forget about them.

And the radiation from those bombs helped him. Along with the severe mental trauma that came with seeing people die and watching the people you love being taken away, seemingly forever. Years went by, and his mind slowly lost control. He lost control of what was once a normal, sane mind. Now you could say he was insane. He was in fact insane. Loneliness drove him to denial about everything that the Great War brought: His brother wasn't dead. Kenneth was still fighting. With Marjory however...

He hadn't seen Kenneth die, only heard about it when the news came in. He could tell himself Kenneth was still alive because he hadn't watched him die. With Marjory he had watched her being taken away, seemingly to her death. Though he wasn't to sure about that either. In fact, he hadn't remembered. He'd only repeat aloud what happened years ago, even if he tried to make himself forget. It would still linger as a distant memory.

Bald now with green skin and only six fingers, three on each hand, the only mental connection he had of Marjory was the look-alike finger puppet of her. He relieved each memory of the real Marjory with her puppet look-alike, though it was completely subconscious on his part.

Yvonne never surfaced back into his memories until he _'gave birth'_ to that black mass one day. And he was subconsciously reminded of his actual daughter when he held that black mass close to his chest, like he had long ago, before the Great War, when that black mass was actually a beautiful human baby girl with her mother's auburn hair and ocean-blue eyes. And that was what he saw in his mind when he looked at that black mass, and even after he gave her, as the black mass, away to Aunty Bainbridge, he'd still remember the _'child'_ he _'birthed'_. But that was the fantasy. The black mass was a fantasy, though in his mind he actually saw what he subconsciously remembered as his real daughter from before the Great War.

In a way, he was free. Mentally free from the guilt that'd he'd never remember again, of what it was like to watch his only family being taken from him by those soldiers and not being able to protect them. No... To him, Marjory was still with him, as the finger puppet, and Yvonne was simply a memory of the _'long awaited child'_ he had yearned for during those long, lonely years after the Great War.

They never really left his (_now_) schizophrenic mind. And maybe it was meant to be that way.

* * *

**A/N: The "he" referred to is obviously Salad Fingers in his past. We don't know his real name and I'm in no mood to try and come up with one.**

**Anyway… Yeah, I had no idea I'd actually write fanfiction for this rather odd web-series, either. But after watching it again a few times, I grew more so fascinated with Salad Fingers' fragile and completely ruined state of mind, and hearing other people's theories about his past (cause let's face it: the Great War really did happen before he completely lost his mind), I came up with my own little backstory for Salad Fingers as well. It was mentioned somewhere that he might have had a child at one point before the Great War, and I think that child's name was Yvonne, because that's what he named the black mass he 'gave birth to' in episode 9. And I can't remember where, but he himself mentioned that Marjory was the mother or something along those lines. So I think he was married to a girl named Marjory and had a child, a daughter named Yvonne, who were in some way taken and/or killed during the Great War.**

**And so this story was born. ;) Sorry if it's 'to serious' but hey: that was kinda the point. XD**

**Two songs I found that perfectly fit Salad Fingers: One of them is "Bird and the Worm" by The Used, and the other song (which I named this one-shot after) is "Lithium" by Evanescence. Yes, I know that sounds cliche, but seriously, read this one-shot while playing that song and then read the lyrics for that song and you'll agree. :)**

**Please, PLEASE review! :)**


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